HOUSTON – Austin’s piano boogie queen Marcia Ball and Texas Johnny Brown reunite for an iFest Mardi Gras party on Friday, February 12 at Houston’s Rockefeller Hall, 3620 Washington Avenue. Proceeds from the one-night only concert will benefit the education programs of the 2010 Houston International Festival. Doors open at 7 p.m. Concert begins at 8 p.m. Guests are encouraged to dress in festive Mardi Gras attire for a chance to win a four-day passport and general admission tickets to iFest.

Ball and Brown are no strangers to the Rockefeller’s stage. Houston music fans have fond memories of the 1980s and 1990s, when Ball, Austin’s blues and boogie piano queen, used to rock the house regularly with her Gulf Coast blend of Louisiana roots and Texas soul. Texas Johnny Brown, one of Houston’s beloved blues icons still going strong at 81 years of age, also played Rockefeller’s on numerous occasions back in the day.

For the past decade, Rockefeller Hall, as the club is now called, has functioned primarily as a private party room. But the club’s elegant style and intimate acoustics have not changed.

And so this is the reunion local music lovers assumed would never happen: Marcia Ball and Texas Johnny Brown back in action on the stage at Rockefeller Hall, in a benefit concert for the education programs of the Houston International Festival.

Promotional sponsorship provided by KPFT 90.1 FM. General Admission tickets are $38. Half-price tickets are available with the advance purchase of a four-day general admission passport to ifest for $99. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit www.ifest.org.